How to create Outlook.com Email Id without renaming your Live / Hotmail Account to Outlook

Microsoft released Outlook yesterday and has surprised everybody with the look and feel and tons of features that has been rolled in. Well we will see that in detail in our upcoming posts, but if you want to grab a .outlook.com email id without removing your existing Live ID or Hotmail account, below is how :

Everything about Managing Outlook Alias

Create an Alias :

Nobody wants to change their Live ID, specially when you have used it any other place. So the best option is to create an alternate email address which is linked with your account and still uses .outlook.com.

Login to Outlook.com

On the top right, Look for a Settings Icon, Click on it and select More Mail Settings. This will take you to Inbox > Options.

Next, look for a link which says Create an Outlook alias, Click it.

Next, you will get the option to create an Email Alias for your account which ends with Outlook.com.

Rename assured that all emails sent to you will land up here and not anywhere else. Also, you will notice that you will be able to create an alias for which no Outlook.com account is registered.

Once you are done creating an alias and you hit the New Mail Account for the first time, you should get a message from Outlook saying :

Great, we’re setting up your new alias

Once we’re done, we’ll send an email to [email protected] telling you that your alias is ready to use. When mail is sent to [email protected], where do you want it to go?

A new Folder

Existing Folder

This way you can sort your emails as they come in or create a new rule later. This is much better than creating a new outlook account because you get the same name and still get to keep your old account.

Using Your Alias :

To send email messages from this alias, click on your address (above the To line in the message) and select your alias from the list.

If you set up a separate inbox folder for your alias, messages sent to that alias will go there. Otherwise, messages sent to your alias will go to your regular inbox.

Remember, you can’t sign in to your account with your alias; you’ll need to sign in with your regular address.

Migrating Existing Live or Hotmail Email Account to Outlook :

Said that, Many might not be wanting to keep their Live account at all and want to migrate to a new account which just has .outlook.com and no .live etc.

This can done using an option, Rename your Account, which you already saw above under Create Alias Option in Mail settings.

When you use this, you lose your live account this means any email sent to this account will no longer be handled, but all old email will be kept.. This is the primary reason why aliases are better. You will get a clear warning which says :

Rename your email address

Warning: You might not want to change this email address if you’ve used it to set up a Windows Phone. On your phone, features that use this address will stop working, including Marketplace, Xbox LIVE, SkyDrive, email, and others. To use these features again on your phone, you’d need to restore it to factory settings, which erases all personal content.

Why rename your address? When you rename your email address, your new ID works just like your old one. Your new mail will go to your inbox, and you can choose to keep your old mail in a separate folder. All of your other Microsoft account info—like contacts, photos and Office docs on SkyDrive—will also switch to your new address within a few days.